Impact

Discovering Materials

“My freshman ceramics research experience at Purdue made me appreciate the diverse applicability and potential of ceramics. I was fascinated by how seemingly minor differences in the way a ceramic part was prepared could dramatically affect its final properties, making ceramics useful in applications ranging from medicine to aerospace.”

— Valerie Wiesner, NASA Glenn Research Center

Career test drive

“I did my first internship freshman year and it led me to change my major, and I never looked back. It’s hard to choose a career before getting a chance to try it on for size. What I didn’t realize then is that the contacts you make will often be as important to your career as the internship experience itself.”

— Christopher Dosch, GE Global Research

Scholarship

“Thanks to a scholarship when I was a new graduate student, I
was able to spend one and a half great years at a French university
where I studied materials science with students from all over
Europe. My first experience abroad inspired me, and now, years
later, I am still enjoying the exciting world of nanoceramics.”

— Eva Hemmer, INRS–Centre EMT, Canada

Internship

“I never worked with glass before I started my internship at Kopp Glass. But after working there for a couple months I found glasses to be so interesting that I knew that was the material I wanted to work with for the rest of my life.”

-Eric Teller, Alfred University

Valuable Mentoring

“On top of the valuable educational opportunities my internship offered, the time spent working side by side with NIST research scientist, Winnie Wong-Ng, showed me that the set of technical skills I’m acquiring can be applied to find solutions to real world problems. I found this profoundly motivating.”

— Kevin Talley, Boise State University

International Network

“My experience working in Professor Ikuhara’s lab at the University of Tokyo for a summer showed me the value of building my international network early in my career.”

— Jesse Angle, University of California, Irvine

Learn More

To learn more about the benefits of participating in CGIF, please contact: Marcus Fish